A review by colin_cox
Lost Boy: A Novella by Thomas Wolfe
5.0
Thomas Wolfe's The Lost Boy is a stunning piece of fiction that understands the logic of desire, loss, and the contradictory coupling of satisfaction and dissatisfaction better than many texts from this period. The Lost Boy is a hyper-romantic text, brimming with decorative language and disarming visual imagery that, admittedly, may limit Wolfe's attempts at building a coherent narrative environment. Nevertheless, The Lost Boy is an evocative text that asks readers to grapple with the potential implausibility of reconstructing the past, or better yet, The Lost Boy encourages readers to think that discovery and loss occur concurrently. In simple terms: discovering what was lost, for Wolfe, triggers another, more profound loss. Therefore, Wolfe encourages his reader to conclude that the process of discovery is more significant than the discovery itself.
***
March 2019 Reading
The Lost Boy remains a stunning achievement. Once again, I would emphasize the way discovery and loss are inextricably linked in this text. As the novella concludes, Wolfe writes, "And again, again, I turned into the street, finding the place where corners meet, turning to look again to see where Time had gone. And all of it was just the same, it seemed that it had never changed since then, except all had been found and caught and captured for forever. And so, finding all, I knew all had been lost."
***
November 2019 Reading
This is the third time I have taught Wolfe's The Lost Boy, and to this point, I have failed to reckon with the way Wolfe builds fictional spaces. Wolfe's descriptions of St. Louis in the first of fourth sections are profound and evocative. This is quite visible when one compares the St. Louis of the past (section one) to the St. Louis of the novella's present (section four). Eugene's "lost" brother, Robert, is analogous to a "lost" St. Louis. Here, Robert operates on two levels; he is lost metaphysically and physically. This, however, renders Eugene's momentary discovery on the final page all the more resonant. Robert emerges both from the past and through the industrialized, quasi-cosmopolitan present. This reading challenges Eugene's assumptions about where and when Robert resides. In this sense, The Lost Boy is about more than restoring the past. It is also about restoring the present.
***
March 2023 Reading
The Lost Boy remains this quasi-spiritual experience for me. This time, I noticed and want to explore why Wolfe capitalizes the word "Time" throughout the novella. "Time" begins to function as a signifier for Robert himself. In short, Robert transforms, through loss, recollection, and emergence, into the experience of time itself, especially for Eugine in the novella's fourth and final section.
***
March 2019 Reading
The Lost Boy remains a stunning achievement. Once again, I would emphasize the way discovery and loss are inextricably linked in this text. As the novella concludes, Wolfe writes, "And again, again, I turned into the street, finding the place where corners meet, turning to look again to see where Time had gone. And all of it was just the same, it seemed that it had never changed since then, except all had been found and caught and captured for forever. And so, finding all, I knew all had been lost."
***
November 2019 Reading
This is the third time I have taught Wolfe's The Lost Boy, and to this point, I have failed to reckon with the way Wolfe builds fictional spaces. Wolfe's descriptions of St. Louis in the first of fourth sections are profound and evocative. This is quite visible when one compares the St. Louis of the past (section one) to the St. Louis of the novella's present (section four). Eugene's "lost" brother, Robert, is analogous to a "lost" St. Louis. Here, Robert operates on two levels; he is lost metaphysically and physically. This, however, renders Eugene's momentary discovery on the final page all the more resonant. Robert emerges both from the past and through the industrialized, quasi-cosmopolitan present. This reading challenges Eugene's assumptions about where and when Robert resides. In this sense, The Lost Boy is about more than restoring the past. It is also about restoring the present.
***
March 2023 Reading
The Lost Boy remains this quasi-spiritual experience for me. This time, I noticed and want to explore why Wolfe capitalizes the word "Time" throughout the novella. "Time" begins to function as a signifier for Robert himself. In short, Robert transforms, through loss, recollection, and emergence, into the experience of time itself, especially for Eugine in the novella's fourth and final section.